Chewing gum restores dad's taste and smell years after Covid

someperson

Where can somebody with regular taste senses buy these specially formulated chewing gum to try and develop super senses? I wonder if it dulls other senses the opposite of blind people who develop more sensitive hearing.

readthenotes1

Does it work for people who aren't dad's?

graypegg

> The dad-of-two, from Litchfield, Staffordshire, could eat the spiciest curries with no effect I know this is probably just a bit of "editorial spice" because it's an obvious example for "what would you do if you could eat anything" I guess, but I thought capsaicin/spicyness was NOT a taste-perception thing. Isn't more of a pain feeling? I would've assumed you would retain that, while losing the olfactory perception you need for flavours. I am no expert in this sort of thing, so if anyone knows I'd be genuinely curious about why COVID would affect both of those senses.

cactusplant7374

> “The chewing gums were specially formulated to keep their flavour for longer, and actually change flavour as you chew. Sounds like an amazing product that I would want to buy. I probably chew 20 sticks of gum a day.

MrDresden

I had my fourth Covid infection just a month ago. Fully vaccinated, and having had it three times before, it still hit me like a brick. It took 10 days to get rid of the flu like symptoms, two weeks to get to semi normal, but my taste hasn't been the same since. Not entirely gone, but very muted. If these gums were available off the shelf I would buy them in a heartbeat!

jnwatson

I lost my sense of smell from a minor virus I caught a couple years ago. It probably wasn't COVID (I tested negative at least). It came back very slowly, and unevenly. My coffee/chocolate taste is still quite dim. Of all the possible smells to lose, why did it have to be those?

pipeline_peak

How it feels to chew 5 gum

tylerritchie

Multimodal Chewing Gum Flavour Training to Aid Flavour Perception Recovery - a Pilot Study https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07498062 looks like it uses flavorings from these folks https://www.tastetech.com/

layman51

I remember losing sense of smell, and one thing that was interesting was being able to perhaps train it back by sniffing different essential oils, and writing a note about what I was able to smell.

bilsbie

I believe this condition is called parosmia. I had a mild version for four years. It’s finally resolving (except shampoos and some sodas smell really strange)

foo12bar

I lost my sense of smell from Covid for a few weeks once, too. I used to eat mulberrys right off the tree in my backyard, but I realized that I could no longer tell if they had gone bad without my sense of smell. The smell/taste of my favorite foods no longer there is one thing, but the lack of ability to tell whether there is something wrong with whmy food was far more concerning.

nkrisc

I only partially lost my sense of smell and taste from covid. Certain foods started to taste different , but I could still taste them. Then I noticed that a particular cologne I had was now completely odorless to me, so it kind of seemed like there was some particular type of smell/odor/taste that I couldn’t sense. I eventually adjusted and got used to it and then everything tasted weird again for a while when my senses finally restored after a few months.

retinaros

my smell never recovered fully from first waves of covid. I am at 70%. ill try this.

andix

I have a friend who doesn't have a sense of smell since birth. It's more of a problem than one would think. His diet is rather plain, and he doesn't enjoy a lot of food. It's mostly meat, fried things and sweets he enjoys. Most vegetables and low-fat dishes he just can't enjoy at all. Luckily he doesn't get a lot of pleasure from eating and that's what keeps him from getting obese. It also gives him a lot of anxiety that he or his clothes smell bad. He often just can't assess it from other clues. He often needs to ask people to smell him during the day, which leads to some hilarious situations sometimes, but it's not by choice. It's driven by the fear of smelling bad and not realizing it. It can also get dangerous in some situations, not being able to smell a gas leak, only noticing smoke once it got so thick it will hurt when breathing, and not being able to smell when food goes bad.

indoordin0saur

I remember this happened to me after catching covid very early. Wasn't sick beyond a flu, but it knocked my sense of smell and taste out completely for about a month. Once it started to recover it came back quick but it was a very worrying month because before it started to recover there was no sign that I was going to improve. I definitely feel sympathy for anyone who had to do with this for a long time.

ecshafer

Interesting. So the idea is that the senses are just damages, not dead. So use a really strong scent/smell to invigorate them, get something going through them, and have that redevelop the neural pathways (not a biologist).

registeredcorn

I'd be interested to hear if this also has positive results on non-C19 related people, too. I've had Hyposmia (partial inability to smell) for essentially [1] my entire life. I don't really enjoy the taste or smell of things, and I usually only notice stuff if it's especially strong, or right next to my face. I see that whole sensory thing to being a kind of distraction from living life. Like, why should you care if something smells good or not? I just don't see the point. Regardless, I'd still be interested in it because I can smell stuff like rotting fruit or feces or whatever, so I do understand that there are clear and obvious benefits to knowing "Hey, don't eat that!" because it can make you sick or kill you or whatever. I think that, being able to smell and taste everything would probably be kind of gross and overwhelming, but it may be worth exploring since so many people make such a big deal out of it. From my perspective though, it all feels like a kind of mass hallucination on a global scale. If nothing else, it would probably make my cooking a little bit better. I obviously tend to go very crazy with spices and stuff, and my wife kind of suffers through some of it. I've wondered what it'd be like to be able to detect anything other than a kind "terrible taste" for something like wine, or what the hell Swiss cheese is actually (supposedly) "taste" like. And for the record, I still refuse to believe that: Munster, Swiss, Provolone, American, Feta, Parmesan, Beaufort, Camembert, and Romano cheese have an actual "taste" to them! Blue cheese and Roquefort have some flavor, but everything else is just tastes like slightly different cuts of a cold, textured "food substance". It's like insisting that lettuce or spinach have a "flavor"! They're just some crunchy nonsense that you put in between the bread to make the mouth-feel vaguely more interesting; little green piles of nonsense. [1] I don't know if my issue was from birth, or came on later from a blow to the head, or what. I didn't realize I had Hyposmia until I mentioned how, "All bread tastes exactly the same" in my mid 20's and multiple people started looking at me funny.

bitwize

Interesting life-imitates-art moment reading that he tried this flavor-changing chewing gum and then noticed that his taste was restored when he ate a blueberry. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , Willy Wonka formulates a new kind of gum that provides the flavor of a full-course meal in a single stick. Violet Beauregarde steals and chews a piece, but the formula hasn't been worked out yet so when it gets to the blueberry pie she plumps up and turns into a giant human blueberry.

shoopadoop

Please send me some gum

anilgulecha

I have anosmia, triggered by AERD/polyps. I have been mostly without the sense for the past ~12 years, but int eh past year have had bouts of smell again, via a doc who finally diagnosed AERD, and suggested steroid intervention + mepolizumab.